


On the Lonely Nights Like These

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, NSFW, Smut, Woven Lace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 15:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18919996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Woven Lace. Weaver is once again called upon to see an extremely drunk Lacey safely home from Roni’s. It’s becoming a sadly frequent occurrence. The next morning, Lacey examines her feelings towards him, and decides to act on them.Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “body shots, dancing on tables, music, boner, hickey”





	On the Lonely Nights Like These

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Binge drinking & implied alcoholism.

As soon as his phone started ringing and he saw that the call was from Roni, Weaver knew that his hopes for a quiet evening getting up to date with his paperwork would be going out of the window in very short order. He was tempted to ignore it, but he knew that he’d never live with himself if he ignored the summons and then something catastrophic ended up happening. Roni would only ever call him if she was concerned, and it took a lot to concern Roni.

He took a long sigh as he grabbed the phone, wondering what had happened this time. These calls were becoming more and more frequent, and he knew that he was going to have to consult the problem head on sooner rather than later, however unpleasant that conversation might be.

He answered. “What’s she done now?”

 _“She’s started dancing on the tables.”_  Roni’s reply was dry. In the background, Weaver could hear warbling off-key singing, and he knew exactly who it was.

“She’s done that before, hasn’t she?”

_“Yes, as you know, for Lacey, dancing on tables is usually the gateway to myriad other acts of debauchery, none of which I want in my bar. I’d kick her out, but I’d be worried about who she went home with. Can you come and get her before something happens? Please?"_

Despite Roni’s peeved tones, Weaver could pick up on the desperation in her voice. As much as Lacey was a liability for the both of them, neither of them wanted to see her get hurt. She was a sweet girl when she wasn’t drinking. Sadly, she was drinking more often than she wasn’t, these days. By the time she turned up to Roni’s of an evening she was usually half-cut already.

Weaver didn’t know how he had ended up as Lacey’s keeper. There were certainly days when he wished he wasn’t. Days like today, when the paperwork was piling up and he really didn’t want to leave the comfort of his warm office to go and manhandle a woman who wasn’t even really a friend, was she? They’d just started talking in Roni’s one night and he’d seen her home safe after, and he’d just kept seeing her home safe every night after that. She was an intelligent conversation partner if he got her on her own, rather than trying to impress the crowd of frat boys that occasionally frequented Roni’s of a dull evening. It didn’t matter how much she’d had to drink; she could still debate him under the table in an entirely coherent way.

Weaver smiled as he grabbed his jacket and made to leave the station, remembering the time when he had actually had a debate with her under a table. She was at least five and a half sheets to the wind, and it was time to take her home, but she was steadfastly refusing to go and had barricaded herself under the table. He shook himself, trying to push the thought to the back of his mind. Lacey was a liability: he absolutely should not be thinking of her in a fond manner like this.

He didn’t know whether it was a trick of his imagination or whether it was fact, but Roni’s always seemed to be louder whenever he knew that Lacey was inside. He waited a moment before he pushed the door open, listening to the music and the faint strains of Lacey’s voice above it. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could recognise her cadences.

Weaver opened the door with a heavy heart, unsurprised by what he saw but saddened, nonetheless. Lacey was draped over one of the tables, eye-poppingly sparkly minidress hiked up around her middle as her crowd of admirers did body shots of tequila. In the shadows of the bar, Roni was watching, unwilling to intervene and spoil Lacey’s fun, but still fingering the baseball bat she always kept behind the ice bin. She gave Weaver a nod of acknowledgement as he walked in.

“Johnny!” Lacey exclaimed as she saw him, sitting up suddenly and causing tequila to spill out of her navel, much to the frustration of the boy who’d been lining up to take a drink. Even though it was obvious that he was here to take her home, she still seemed excited to see him, and she skipped across the bar, taking his hand to drag him back to her table. “Want some tequila? Of course, you can’t have tequila without salt and lemon. How about from here?” She unceremoniously pulled her dress back up to expose her bare breasts, touching her nipples, much to the raucous delight of her onlookers. Weaver rolled his eyes and took the hem from her hands, covering her up again. The boys - surely some of them couldn’t be old enough to drink legally - began to voice their loud protest, only to fall back into mute fear as Weaver shifted his stance just enough to show his badge and gun on his belt. He’d done this before, many times, and he had no doubt that he’d be doing it again soon enough.

Lacey groaned. “Come on, don’t be a stick in the mud. Live a little, Detective!”

“It’s time to go home, Lacey,” he said gently. “Come on. You’ve had enough.”

She glared at him for a full thirty seconds, and if looks could have killed then Weaver would have been dead and buried, but then the expression melted into something more akin to sorrow, and she slipped off the table without another word, holding out a hand to him.

“Take me home, Detective,” she said, the words only slurring a little. Weaver took her hand and hooked her arm through his, steering her towards the door on her shaky high heels. Once they were outside, she leaned into him as if for warmth, although it was a summer night and the breeze was pleasant.

“You always have to come and spoil my fun,” she mumbled. “I think you have a knack for turning up just when things are going to get interesting. How do you do it? Do you have a sixth sense?”

Weaver decided not to tell her that Roni had been keeping tabs on her for weeks now.

“Yep. It’s magic.”

“Hmm.” Lacey just flashed him a dazzling smile. “What can I do to make you turn it off?”

“Nothing. I will always come and ruin your party.”

“Whyyyyyyy?”

“I think you know why, Lace.” Her apartment wasn’t too far from the bar, but they were moving at a snail’s pace, and there was plenty of time for this conversation. 

“Because you’re worried that I’ll do something I’ll regret in the morning.” He’d said it to her often enough and it was nice to know that it had stuck. “You’re not my dad. I know you’re old but you’re not that old.”

Weaver sighed and tried not to think about the implications. No, he was definitely not Lacey’s father and he definitely did not think of her in a paternal way. He was a friend looking out for her, nothing more. He remembered the sight of her presenting her breasts to him and suppressed a groan at the back of his throat, willing the first stirrings in his crotch away. Now was absolutely not the time to get a boner; not when he was ostensibly being her knight in shining armour and protecting her from all the louts who would certainly take advantage of what she had offered.

They reached her building and she fumbled with her keys, eventually dropping them into the gutter.

Weaver grabbed them and let them in.

“Thank you,” Lacey said sweetly. “I know I can always rely on you to get me home no matter how much tequila I’ve had.” She draped her arms around his neck and stared at him for a while, making no move to get up the stairs into her apartment. In her current state, that was probably a good thing. She’d had enough trouble on flat ground, stairs would be something entirely different. “I want to give you a hickey.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yeah I do. You have a really lovely neck and I just wanna eat it.”

Before Weaver could protest, she leaned in and clamped her mouth down on his neck, sucking hard and dragging her tongue over his skin. Weaver couldn’t stop the groan that escaped his lips.

“See, you look lovely now, and you can tell all your friends at the station that a fantastic girl in a bar couldn’t keep her hands off you. And flashed her boobs.” There was the slightest hint of shame and bitterness in her voice as she peeled herself away from him and began to make her way up the stairs towards her apartment. Weaver still had her keys, so he followed her up, her progress hindered slightly when she sat down halfway up the stairs to take her shoes off. At least she was less likely to fall down now.

They eventually made it into the apartment, and once they were inside, Lacey seemed to sober up a little, dumping her purse on the sofa and wobbling her way through into her bedroom. Weaver tried to distract himself from the throbbing mark on his neck by getting her a large glass of water, determined that she’d drink at least some of it before she collapsed. By focussing on her obvious intoxication and what he could do to alleviate the symptoms in the morning, he was much less likely to think about how much he wanted to return the hickey she’d given him.

Her bedroom door was wide open as he went to it, but he knocked on the frame anyway.

Lacey beckoned him in. She’d swapped her minidress for an oversized t-shirt and was spread over her bed as if she’d just fallen there and couldn’t bothered to move. She levered herself up enough to take the water from him and gulp down half the glass before collapsing again.

“Tequila’s never as much fun when you leave the bar,” she grumbled.

“You always say that, but you always go back and drink it anyway,” Weaver said. 

“Yeah, that’s because it’s fun when you’re in the bar. If I could just stay in the bar all the time, then I wouldn’t have this problem.”

Weaver didn’t make any of the comments that he could have done. He didn’t ask why she drank so much, because in a way, he already knew. Lacey was chronically lonely, and tequila brought her friends. All he could hope was that she’d see it herself soon enough, and see that he could make her less lonely, if that was what she wanted. They could both be less lonely together.

“Come on, Lace,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, and trying to roll her over. “On your side.”

“On your side, Frenchie!” Lacey gave a snort of laughter and Weaver raised an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. “Come on! It’s from Cabaret, when they’re introducing the Kit Kat dancers!  _I like to order Frenchie on the side. On your side, Frenchie!_  And I’m Frenchie. Well. French. So, it’s funny. Never mind. No appreciation for musical theatre.”

“I don’t want you throwing up in your sleep,” Weaver told her bluntly, but she was still humming lyrics from Cabaret under her breath.

Weaver sighed and settled himself in the chair in the corner of the room as Lacey drifted off. He didn’t really think that she’d choke; she could usually hold her drink, and the more she drank, the more she could hold it, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he left her tonight and tomorrow morning was the one on which she never woke up.

X

Lacey’s head was pounding, and it tasted like something had died inside her mouth, but far more pressing was the fact that her bladder was about to explode. She rolled out of bed and staggered into the bathroom, only just about registering the fact that Weaver was in her bedroom, dozing in her chair in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. As grateful as she was that he had seen her home, and that he had stayed to make sure that she woke up in the morning, she really didn’t want to think about the state he’d seen her in last night. It wasn’t the first time she’d made such a spectacle of herself and she doubted that it would be the last. She was sure that the only reason she hadn’t been barred from Roni’s for unacceptable behaviour was because Roni wanted to keep an eye on her and couldn’t do that if she was in someone else’s bar.

All the same, she wished that Weaver occasionally saw her at her best. Not that she really had a best anymore. If he could see her not at her worst, that would be good.

She washed her hands and face, scrubbing at her smeared make-up, and after brushing her teeth, she felt much more alive, even if she did stink of booze. Lacey peered around the door to find Weaver awake.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Disgusting, like I always do the morning after.” She slipped out of the bathroom and sat down on her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Why do I drink so much?”

Weaver shook his head. “Only you can answer that one, Lace.” He indicated the bathroom. “You mind?”

“Be my guest. Please don’t be alarmed by the underwear strewn everywhere or the empty bottle of vodka behind the sink.”

Weaver just snorted as he locked the door behind him. Lacey rested her chin on her knees, thinking about the overhanging question. She knew why she drank. It was to alleviate the crippling loneliness that she’d felt ever since her parents had died and her fiancé had left her for someone more sophisticated and all of her friends had grown up and become respectable, ashamed of the party girl they left behind. At least when she went to Roni’s, she wasn’t alone for a while, and she could usually find a warm body to keep her company for an evening.

Weaver was the only one who ever stayed the night, and he hadn’t even slept with her.

He wanted to, though. She’d seen the way he looked at her when she let him out the door of a morning. It wasn’t just sympathy or pity. It went deeper than that.

When he came out of the bathroom, Lacey looked at him, taking in the hickey on his neck that she only now remembered giving him last night.

“Would you stay?” she asked.

“What?”

“If we hooked up… Would you stay the night after? You’re the only guy who ever stays and we haven’t even had a fumble, let alone fucked.”

“Lacey, I stay because I don’t want to be called here the next morning because you choked in your sleep.” There was something raw and vulnerable in his voice that Lacey had never heard there before, and it threw her off guard.

“That’s more than most people do,” she said.

“And I would never sleep with you in that state. I know you don’t want that, even if you think you do at the time.”

“I do want that.” Lacey slid off the bed and came over to him. “I’m definitely not drunk anymore. The pounding headache tells me that. You’re the only one who ever gives a damn about me. Well, you and Roni, but she’s not my type.”

She put her hands on his shoulders and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. Weaver pulled away.

“Please, Lacey,” he whispered. “Please don’t do it unless you mean it. Don’t confuse gratitude with something else.”

She’d never seen Weaver like this. It was as if the calm and unrufflable detective had fallen away and there was just a very broken man left behind. As broken as Lacey, in his own way.

“Why?” she asked, although she could hardly speak around the lump in her throat. “Why does that matter so much to you?”

“Because I don’t want to lose you when you realise it’s not what you want. I care about you too much for that.”

Lacey pressed her lips against Weaver’s, slowly, deliberately, making her intentions clear. He gave a little moan against her mouth before he relaxed into the kiss.

“I want you,” she said. “And not just because you make sure I’m ok. I like you. I always have done, and I feel so ashamed when I wake up and find you here because I want you to see me at my best, but that’s not even a thing anymore. Because I don’t feel lonely when I’m with you.”

“Oh Lacey…” He kissed her again, running his hands down her back to lift her up and carry her back to the bed. His kisses were fierce and passionate, as if he was scared she’d disappear at any moment. Lacey could understand; she was feeling the same way. She scrabbled out of her t-shirt and panties and started to divest Weaver of his many layers.

“Has anyone ever told you that there is such a thing as too much denim?”

“They have now.”

He kissed his way down her body, sucking on her nipples in turn like she’d wanted him to do at the bar last night, and she pulled him back up, remembering that anything lower would still taste of tequila from the body shots. But God, she didn’t want to let go of him now in case he slipped through her fingers.

“Not now,” she said. “When I’ve showered.”

Weaver acquiesced, slipping a hand down between her thighs to stroke along her folds and touch her clit. Lacey groaned, not sure whether her head was going to feel better or worse in the aftermath but not able to care.

“Harder,” she panted. “I’m not going to break.” She was already broken, but then so was Weaver, and their sharp edges could cancel each other out. He pressed more firmly against her clit and Lacey gasped, shifting her hips to rub up against him.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Even at your worst.”

She didn’t know whether it was his voice or his fingers, but Lacey came apart in his arms, her climax warming her and making her see stars. It was a while since any of her partners had made her feel this good.

She could feel Weaver’s erection, hot and hard against her thigh, and she groped around in her nightstand for a condom, wrapping her arms and legs around him as he lined them up, keeping him as close as she could. He was her protector in the night when she was at her most vulnerable. She could return the favour now whilst he came undone for her.

“Oh Lacey.” He sighed, his thrusts losing rhythm now as he neared the edge. “Oh Lacey, you’re something else.”

He came buried to the hilt inside her, and Lacey didn’t want to let him go. It was with reluctance that she unclamped her legs from around his back so that he could pull out and get rid of the condom.

“What happens now?” she asked as he lay back down with her, his hand resting lightly on her hip.

“Now I guess we figure out what comes next.”

“Water and double-strength Tylenol for me.” Lacey groaned. “And maybe going cold turkey on the tequila.”

“I was talking about us.”

“Yeah. Me too. I… I’m not good at relationships, John. I never have been. But this thing we have, it feels good. And I want to keep it good.”

“I’m not exactly great at people either,” Weaver said. “We’ll make it work.”

Lacey closed her eyes and rolled over into his embrace. She really hoped that they could.


End file.
